To Catch a Thief Read online

  “She wins and loses,” Francie said. “She’s lost, lately, but the money doesn’t mean anything to her. It’s the thrill.” After a moment she added, “I wish I could get a thrill out of gambling.”

  “You don’t get much of a thrill out of anything, do you?”

  “No.” She stared at the sand pouring through her fingers.

  “How long are you going to stay here in Cannes?”

  “Until the season is over, I suppose. Mother always wants to wait until the last gala, so she can make a big splash.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know. New York, or Florida. Or Switzerland. Or somewhere to make another splash. It depends on Mother.”

  “Do you always go where she goes?”

  “Usually. She’s too friendly to travel by herself. She’s always picking up imitation dukes who borrow money from her and forget to pay it back, or try to steal her jewels. I have to look out for her jewels.”

  “You sound more like the mother than the daughter.”

  “Sometimes I feel that way.”

  She began to drift sand over her painted toenails.

  He was trying to think of another conversational lead when she said abruptly, “I’ll be glad to get out of here.”

  “Don’t you like Cannes?”

  “Do you?” She looked up at him curiously.

  “Very much.”

  “Why? What do you like about it?”

  “Why, everything.”

  “The casinos? The beach? Rubbing elbows with famous people? Hitting the high spots? Drinking champagne? Playing roulette all night? Being waited on, and made to think you’re somebody important? Is that what you mean?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “You know it’s all put on for you, don’t you? You’re not really as important as they try to make you feel.”

  “I still like it.”

  She made an impatient gesture, then went on funneling sand over her toenails.

  After a while she said, “You’re not married, are you?”

  “I never could seem to find the time.”

  “You seem to have the time now.” She looked sideways at him, tilting her head, unsmiling. “She’s awfully pretty.”

  “Who?”

  “The girl you were with last night, at the restaurant. I’ve seen you with her several times.”

  He laughed. “You’ll probably see her with me several times again. That’s as far as it goes. She isn’t half my age.”

  “What do life expectancies have to do with it?”

  He was still wondering what Mr. Burns should say to an irrelevant remark about life expectancies when Francie stood up, walked down to the sea, plunged in, and swam away.

  She was a strange girl. He felt vaguely sorry for her, without knowing why. But he was not unhappy when she passed his deck chair the next afternoon with her usual indifferent greeting. She had a new man following her.

  Danielle, unlike Francie, was delightful company. Although she had the same keep-your-distance air about her it that he had first noticed in Francie, and did not like him even to take her arm when they crossed the street or touch her hand when they said good night—he supposed that good-night attempts by other employers had made her cautious—she talked freely of herself whenever he showed an interest. Something about her reminded him of someone he had known before. In an attempt to pin the resemblance down, he asked questions.

  She had learned English in the French schools and improved it in England, where she had spent nearly a year as lady’s maid. The job had ended when the lady walked in on Danielle and the lady’s husband as Danielle was slapping the husband’s face. She was hoping to find another permanent position that did not have complicating factors. In the meantime, Bellini placed her temporarily with summer visitors to the Côte as lady’s maid, governess, or, she put it frankly, as companion of the evening for American gentlemen who did not expect a companion for the night as well. Between times she worked for Claude at La Plage Nautique, collecting rentals for the beach chairs and umbrellas, or simply standing around ornamentally in a bikini so gentlemen could admire her figure and possibly decide to patronize the plage.

  She was equally frank about the reason for her value to Claude. John said, “Doesn’t it bother you to show yourself off that way?”

  “Why should it? I know I have a pretty figure. And all women like to be admired. French women are more honest about it than others, that’s all.”

  “What about Claude? Doesn’t he care?”

  “It’s what he pays me for. All the other professeurs do the same thing.”

  “Doesn’t he ever get jealous, or resent having people stare at you?”

  “All he cares about is the money it brings in. Besides, he has nothing to be jealous about. I only work for him.”

  “He swelled his muscles at me the first day I talked to you.”

  She laughed. “Those muscles. You needn’t be afraid, though. They’re all he has. Nothing upstairs. It’s too bad.”

  “Why is it too bad?”

  She said seriously, “He wants me to marry him. I’d like to get married, raise half a dozen children, darn their socks, and cook soup for them. I like babies, and cooking soup. But Claude—” She shook her head doubtfully. “I don’t know. With no money, and no brains either, he isn’t much of a catch.”

  “A husband ought to have one or another.”

  “He ought to have money, anyway. A man like Claude doesn’t really need brains. That’s what a wife is for. But if he can’t afford to support a wife, where is he?”

  “I don’t know. Are you in love with him?”

  “No. But I could be, if he had money. Or brains. We French women are adaptable.”

  John lifted his wine glass. “It’s an honest answer. Here’s to you, Danielle.”

  “Here’s to you, Mr. Burns.”

  They drank the toast at Les Ambassadeurs, one of the few restaurants in Cannes which still clung to tradition. Even during the hottest evenings of the summer, only guests in dinner clothes were permitted to dine on the main floor. Others, like John and Danielle, sat at small tables on a low mezzanine, ate the same good food, paid the same high prices, and listened to the music of the same string orchestra. There were never very many people who went to the trouble of dressing formally for the privilege of walking down the six stairs from the mezzanine to the main floor of Les Ambassadeurs, but always a few. That night, while he was waiting for the waiter to bring his change, he looked down at the floor below and saw Paul.

  The white dinner jacket caught his eye first. Paul was alone, and sat facing him directly. The subdued light was too dim for John to see his face clearly, but there was something, a kind of rigidity in the way he sat, which warned John that Paul’s attention had been attracted. He turned his head, not too quickly, and then, as the waiter came back with his change, stood up to draw Danielle’s chair away from the table.

  She said something to him. He did not hear the words, but he smiled and followed her away from the table, letting his shoulders sag and his stomach push forward, trying to shrink into his clothes. He did not dare turn around to see if Paul had moved. He did not look back until they were outside in the street. Paul had not followed.

  But the narrow escape disturbed him. Moments later, while they were walking, Danielle said, “What’s the matter, Mr. Burns? Did I say something?”

  “Why do you ask that?”

  “Just a feeling. You don’t seem—I don’t know—quite the same. I thought I might have said something wrong, when I was talking about Claude and getting married.”

  “You didn’t say anything wrong.”

  They walked another dozen steps. Danielle was silent. He said, “I don’t think I’ll go to the casino tonight.”

  “All right. Tomorrow night?”

  “Not tomorrow night, either.” He disliked what he was doing, but she had given him an opportunity he needed. “Nor the night after that. I don’t know when I’ll go again
.”

  She stopped and turned to face him. They were under a street light. She said steadily, “I did say something wrong. I’m sorry, Mr. Burns. Whatever it was, I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “You didn’t offend me, Danielle.” He did not try to meet her eyes. “I’m just suddenly tired of gambling, I guess. I’ve really enjoyed your company. If you would like a recommendation—”

  “No, thank you. Good night, Mr. Burns. Thanks for everything.”

  She turned away. He said lamely, “Wait a minute. I owe you some money. And I don’t want you to think—”

  “Give the money to Mr. Bellini for me, please. Good night.”

  It was an unpleasant way to end a pleasant relationship, but he had to get rid of her one way or another and with a reasonable excuse. He knew he could not return to the casinos again. Paul’s presence in Cannes, particularly in evening clothes, meant that he ran the risk of meeting Paul face to face somewhere under the bright lights of the gambling tables. He could not take the chance. He would have to go ahead with what he had, and trust that he had enough to bait at least one effective trap.

  He had three prospects for the thief. Le Chat would have robbed, or attempted to rob, all of them.

  Mrs. Stevens was the first and most obvious. His second choice was an American couple, the Sanfords. George Sanford, who made his money in California real estate, had retired at an early age with Mrs. Sanford to the Château Combe d’Or on a hilltop in a suburb of Cannes named, appropriately, Californie. They were regular visitors to the Palm Beach casino, lost enough money there to indicate they could afford more, and were as well known on the Côte for their huge parties as they were for Mrs. Sanford’s emeralds. She frequently drank too much champagne to be cautious about her jewelry, and the house guests she invited to her famous galas were generally people who brought jewelry of their own to put on display. Mimi Sanford always announced the most elaborate gala of the year at the end of the summer season, when her social rivals had exhausted themselves. John had hopes for the gala if everything else failed.

  His other choice was the wife of a Brazilian coffee planter named Souza. Souza was a dark-skinned man in his forties, a serious gambler and a system player. His wife, ten years younger than he, was a handsome, full-bodied woman who liked to flirt. She played baccarat or sat at the roulette table without any real interest in the game, her beautiful dark eyes roving beyond the cards or the spinning ball until she caught the attention of some man facing her. Once it had been John. Her flirtations were innocent enough, a look, lowered eyelids, another look, a half-smile, a little turn of the shoulder, another half-smile. It was all quite harmless, and it infuriated her husband, who grew paler and more tight-lipped as it went on, glaring first at his wife and then at the uncomfortable man across the table until he could bear it no longer. Bursting with suppressed rage, he would take his wife away from the game. They had a summer cottage in an isolated part of Le Cannet, on the outskirts of Cannes, and John spent hours in the shrubbery beneath their bedroom windows listening to them scream at each other in Portuguese. He could not understand their words, but the arguments always followed the same pattern. They would shout at each other until they were exhausted, then go to bed in separate rooms and sleep peacefully. The next evening the husband would be contrite, the wife cold and well behaved. The day following that she would be less cold and would have added a new diamond and topaz bracelet to her collection of diamond and topaz bracelets. An evening or two later, her eyes would rove again.

  The diamond and topaz bracelets came from Cartier’s or Van Cleef & Arpels, on the Boulevard La Croisette. He had seen the husband go into both shops. Because he had always to be on watch for watchers, he discovered that another man was equally interested in the Brazilians.

  The watcher spent his afternoons on a bench in the little park across the boulevard from Van Cleef & Arpels’s window, usually with a copy of the Continental Daily Mail for company. He was a thin, elderly man with white hair and a fierce white guardsman’s mustache which looked out of place on his mild face. He did not remember to turn the pages of his newspaper as often as he should, and his clothes were more appropriate for London weather than for the Côte.

  John had no opportunity to put Bellini onto him until the day after he saw Paul at Les Ambassadeurs. When he went to Bellini to report, he found the Continental Daily Mail reader twisting his mustache points in Bellini’s office.

  He said, “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’ll come back later, Bellini.”

  Bellini said, “Mr. Paige was just leaving. Have you gentlemen met? Mr. Paige, Mr. Burns. Mr. Burns, Mr. Paige.”

  Mr. Paige said, “How do you do? How do you do?” jerking his head twice quickly at John. “Just about to go. You’ll do what you can for us, Bellini?”

  “Certainly, sir. Although as I have told you—”

  “Quite. Quite. I understand. Discuss it another time. Do your best. Good day. Good day to you, sir.”

  He jerked his head at John again and left the room.

  Bellini giggled helplessly afterward, shaking all over. Between wheezes he said, “He wants to get in touch with Le Chat.”

  “Who is he?”

  “A special agent from the London insurance company. They’ve been badly hurt by claims, and he wants to make an offer for the jewelry before it is broken up. He’s trying to find a contact with le milieu.”

  “Why did he come to you?”

  Bellini gave his lopsided shrug. “I represent the company myself, in a small way. He hoped I would have heard if the jewels had been offered on the market.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “The truth. That I had not heard of a single stone being offered. This is a very clever and cautious thief, John. The police are increasing pressure on le milieu every day, trying to pop him to the surface like a seed from a grape. They do not believe that no one can help them. Jean-Pierre says he has received a definite promise that if they do not take Le Chat soon, they will take him. And others.”

  “Jean-Pierre and the others who know Le Chat might be tempted to talk, in the circumstances.”

  “Undoubtedly. But there is still such a thing as loyalty.”

  “It’s too much to expect that it will go as far as prison.”

  “It went even farther in the maquis. Remember La Mule?”

  “La Mule is dead and buried,” John said. “Tell Jean-Pierre he’ll have to hold out a few days longer. I’m ready for the thief now, or as ready as I’ll ever be.”

  He told Bellini about Paul, and Danielle, and what he had decided.

  Bellini said, “You are right. You cannot go into the casinos again. As for Danielle, it doesn’t matter what she thinks. I have another job ready and waiting for her. Now you will want another kind of help. How many?”

  “Half a dozen good men.”

  “What is good?”

  “Strong, active, and handy with a casse-tête. Some of our old bunch, if you can get them. Like Coco.”

  “You can have Coco, himself, for one. He will be happy to help. I will see about the others.”

  “How about Le Borgne? He isn’t as agile as he might be, but he has a good head.”

  “Le Borgne is almost respectable, as I told you. But he still has a turn to go at La Maison Centrale, and he always admired you. I think I can get him for you. And four others of the best. When do you want them?”

  “As soon as possible. This evening, if you can arrange it. Seven o’clock.”

  “Where shall I send them?”

  “Some place where I can talk to them all together without attracting attention.”

  “There is a small house for rent on the Rue Georges Clemenceau. It is not too far to walk.” Bellini took a key from his desk. “Go first to look at it now, in the daylight, so the neighbors will not become curious later.” He put his hand firmly on John’s arm. “And do not think too much about prison sentences, John, either your own or Jean-Pierre’s or the others. You will beat this
thief. I know it.”

  “I’ll beat him if I last long enough. A bientôt.”

  “I see that you are learning French, Mr. Burns.” Bellini chuckled, “Very good. A bientôt.”

  He went to look at the house on the Rue Georges Clemenceau. He made himself conspicuous there; opened shutters, banged doors, walked around the garden until he was sure he had been noticed by the neighbors. Afterward he had lunch, and went down to the beach for his regular afternoon appearance in the sun.

  For the first time, he went to La Plage Nautique rather than to the plage privée of the Midi. He wanted to see Danielle, if only to say hello. He still felt vaguely guilty about Danielle.

  She was not at the beach. He remembered that Bellini had spoken of other work for her. Claude strutted up with his professional welcoming smile, his fine muscles rippling. He and John talked mostly in pantomime. John said “chaise” and “umbrella” with gestures, and “Danielle?” raising his eyebrows. Claude gave him the chair and the umbrella, but no news of Danielle. He didn’t know, or didn’t want to say. He set up John’s chair, cocked the umbrella over it, and went away.

  John was beginning to realize that he made one mistake in creating Jack Burns. That was to deprive him of the advantage of a French vocabulary.

  It had not been necessary. Many of the Americans he met at the Midi spoke the language adequately, and several were fluent. Mr. Burns could have been reasonably fluent and still remain in character. It made him see how far he had grown away from his own countrymen, that he had not been able to picture a successful, well-educated businessman like Mr. Burns speaking any language except his own.

  But it was a small error and a minor handicap at the most. He had made no major mistakes. Mr. Burns was a well-rounded creation, artistically as well as physically.

  He looked out from under his umbrella across the sparkling blue Mediterranean water to the diving platform, where half a dozen swimmers lay sunning themselves. The diving platform always tempted him. He imagined how it would feel to be out on the board, feel it bounce and spring under him as he went off, deep down into the cool water and up again, thrashing his arms and legs to kick the cramp out of them, get rid of the stiff, tight feeling that came from his awkward walk and the bind of his harness.